


This Kind of Music

by CatLovePower



Category: Nathan Barley (TV)
Genre: M/M, Music, Present Tense, Synesthesia, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-24
Updated: 2011-11-24
Packaged: 2017-10-26 12:11:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/282946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatLovePower/pseuds/CatLovePower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Sometimes, Dan wonders what Jones thinks of him.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Kind of Music

**Author's Note:**

> I’m really not sure about this. It’s neither really clear nor really interesting. It’s just a moment, some reflections, from Dan’s point of view.

Sometimes, Dan wonders what Jones thinks of him. They hardly ever talk. Jones is obnoxious; ever present, ever himself. Except when he sleeps. Then, he becomes so quiet it’s frightening. He never moves, when he sleeps, he never visibly dreams, never mumbles something out loud.

Maybe he dreams of silence.

Jones’ mind works in a bizarre, yet brilliant way. He had explained it to him once, over a cup of coffee, one morning Dan was up early and Jones had spent the whole night up. He had said that he firmly believed he could hear colours and shapes and lights.

“You see, the way the sun reflects on the kitchen table, there.” He had gestured towards the streak of light between them, on the ugly plastic tablecloth on the table, as if the rest was self explanatory. He had shrugged. “It talks to me.”

Objects, broken toys and derelicts. They all have a little song to sing to Jones’ ear. He merely amplifies and magnifies it. And Dan reflects, in the dark living room, in front of his last failure of an article, that maybe it’s what he finds soothing, in Jones’ music. The fact that even if it’s terribly loud and repetitive, and sometimes even appalling, there is always this tiny element of truth, buried beneath the rest, lost in a roar of electronic noises. Jones is quite a poet, really; he just doesn’t know any other way to express what he feels, except through noise – music.

And Dan thinks, while he listens to Jones making noise from the other side of the room – happy and beaming and childish in his demeanor – that he himself is yet another broken object for Jones to try and find a deeper meaning to. Merely an experiment.

Why would anyone care about someone like him – a bad writer, a journalist prostitute – words elude him, tonight maybe more than the other nights. There is no wit in what he has written down so far, only hatred, loathing, and maybe a tiny bit of jealousy.

But again, Jones isn’t anyone.

He wonders what sort of music he is, to Jones. Or maybe this isn’t the way it works; maybe he hasn’t understood, because he never listens carefully enough. The rare times Jones ever speaks to him, he doesn’t listen. Always busy, always angry, always sad and forlorn.

But, Dan thinks, he always listens to his music. It lulls him to sleep, it wakes him up, sometimes not because it’s too loud, but only because it has stopped. Then, Dan would get up and get dressed, and make sure Jones is at least sleeping on a couch. Once or twice he had found him sound asleep, propped up against the wall, as if he had fallen asleep right there on the spot after hours of non-stop mixing – not even bothering to go anywhere near a proper bed. Dan would scoop him up in his arms, complaining that it was doing a number on his back, even though Jones really was quite light. He is all bones and nerves, like some demented jack-in-the-box. And yet he was lax and pliant in his arms, as if all the strings had been cut off.

Jones doesn’t eat enough, he thinks, as he watches his flat mate jump and dance and shout to invisible crowds. (Of course, Dan would never show him that he cares, not when Jones is not passed out or sound asleep.) Then his eyes fall on the ashtray, with all the fag butts scattered around, and he realises that he hasn’t eaten himself since God knows when and all he really craves right now is a sip of whiskey.

Old and broken and dull – his song must be really depressing.

He muses that maybe he is just a note in a world encompassing symphony only Jones can hear. A brass instrument, in the back of the orchestra, which goes quite unnoticed. Something that is always there, because it’s convenient, but not really needed – disposable.

There are a dozen journalists ready to take his place and write shite articles about hype silliness. But there is only one Jones. So rare he doesn’t even need a proper name. So flamboyant and manic and passionate and sincere and... annoying. Always here.

Whereas the idiots come and go and always change, he remains the same, and he believes in what he does. He doesn’t do it for fame, Dan has realised after he met him. He is not a DJ because it’s cool, or popular, but because it is a part of him. The search for the sound; the one that will make people understand how he hears and sees the world.

It must be a pretty fucked up world to sound like that – so loud and aggressive and repetitive. And yet there is always this other layer, underneath. The morning sun that strikes with the right angle in the kitchen. The small note that goes unnoticed, but which is here, nevertheless. Absolutely not important, yet crucial.

He looks up and Jones smiles at him. A toothy smile, a drunken smile – even if he never drinks while mixing. Dizzy on music, happy as a child. Extremely aware, yet eternally optimistic. His exact opposite; Jones creates, in a rather strange and noisy way, while all he does is destroying and corrupting things. What soothes Dan is that Jones seems somehow immune. He can hang around him for days on end and never get fazed.

Maybe it’s better if he doesn’t fully understand the mystery that is Jones. That way he can’t corrupt him. He doesn’t know what’s on his mind and he hopes Jones doesn’t catch what’s on his – too depressing. Even the strongest walls can crumble down. And he doesn’t want to see that happen, not ever.

“You know what I like?”

The music has stopped, he realises, and Jones is pushing a strand of red brown hair from his sweaty brow. Dan chooses to raise an eyebrow, instead of trying to talk, in case there has been something else before that he didn’t catch.

“I like,” says Jones, crashing on the couch beside him, “to watch the tension, ebbing away from you.” He wriggles his fingers in the air in front of him. “I spin a web of sound. You get trapped in it. And then you feel better.”

“Don’t ever stop being you,” Dan whispers, and that sounds awfully like begging.

“I won’t.” A flash of white teeth, a swirl of hair, and he’s back to his making noise, until the sun rises again.

**Author's Note:**

> I had written this fic in one go, at night, on post-its. And I’ve just found one of these post-its, between two books, cleaning up my room. I think I liked it, despite the fact that the whole thing is a little pointless.
> 
> Oh, and feel free to point out any weird sentence/word/expression, since English is not my native language – also it is unbetaed.


End file.
